[lbo-talk] Re: Note on Lieven

[mike larkin]

--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Dwayne Monroe wrote:
> > 
> >
> > It is possible for several movements to compete
> for
> > people's loyalty - disagreeing on philosophical
> points
> > but agreeing that the foreigners must go.
> > 
> > Wasn't this Mao's conclusion during the latter
> years
> > of counter-insurgency against the Japanese
> occupiers?
> >
> 
> I think Mao's conception of the United Front
> presupposed the existence
> of the CPC and the Red Army. It is highly doubtful
> that without such a
> center there would have been any resistance to the
> occupation that
> amounted to more than annoyance. And of course the
> sheer size of China,
> both in area and population, was a major factor. And
> finally, though the
> Nationalists attacked the Reds nearly as often as
> they fought the
> Japanese, Japan had to keep _some_ troops along the
> line fronting on
> Nationalist territory.
> 
> I doubt that there will be anything in Iraq to
> correspond to _either_
> Algeria or Vietnam. That doesn't mean that terrible
> troubles will not
> eventually confront the U.S. Empire in its current
> form; it merely means
> that we can't predict them _or_ base our theory and
> practice on such a
> prediction.
> 
> Liberia is more interesting in some ways. It
> parallels Haiti & the early
> interventions in Yugoslavia: i.e., it represents a
> way for the imperial
> forces to bewilder leftists into helping to create a
> favorable climate
> for further war crimes by the u.s.
> 
> I've always said that I carried only one real grudge
> -- against the
> Weatherman faction in SDS. I'm moving towards adding
> a second grudge:
> towards leftists who argue or have argued that  u.s.
> intervention abroad
> can _ever_ be a positive force -- particularly those
> who supported u.s.
> interventions in Haiti, Yugoslavia, East Timor, or
> Afghanistan.
> 
> Carrol

What if you're a Weatherman who supports U.S.
interventions? You know, like Christopher Hitchens.

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